On Voting

I'm pissed I might have to vote in the upcoming Federal election. I haven't voted in a federal election since, let me think, shit I have to check wikipedia. In 1993 I voted for the Marxist Leninists in London North. They didn't win.

I am, like the majority of Canadians, a non-voter. I guess I am political for a non-voter but all that "If you don't vote, don't complain" bullshit bothers me so much I never ask people if, or how, they vote. You can always complain. It's a human right. The trick is finding someone who will listen. I don't know how political most non-voters are. It might be that all the most politically opinionated people I know are also non-voters. Anyway, back to why I might be forced to vote.

When I was young and exciting about participating in the democratic process I used to vote in every mayoral election. Mostly because a crazy person named Agnes Shaw ran on a two point platform - legalize prostitution and build a huge landing pad for alien spaceships. Both these ideas are so self-evidently right I felt I had an obligation to do what I could to help. And that was the beginning of my disenfranchisement. Londoners kept electing klepto business people instead of a woman of vision. It is worth pointing out two of London's three previous mayors have been indicted under corruption and fraud charges (and the other was booted out of office for letting her husband run an illegal business from her office) and London still doesn't have a UFO landing pad.

Reading Noam Chomsky's analysis of the American political system pretty much guaranteed I would never vote again. Chomsky's point (one of them and you should read him rather than take my word for it) is elections are theater. There purpose is to make you feel like you have a say. You don't. Only 20% of the population have any influence in American politics. They are the people in charge and all the policies of both parties are formulated specifically to keep them happy. So if you aren't in that 20% it makes no difference to you who wins. I think that 20% number is way too high but it doesn't change the argument. I'm not one of those people.

I think of American presidential elections as a race to 55 million votes. Each vote has a price. In 2000 it was approximately $7. By 2008, it was $14. Now it's about $20. Inflation is a bitch. All the debates, all the speeches, all the rallies - they are just the show you can choose to pay for. The true election is the race to $1.1 billion. This isn't a perfect rule: in 1964 Lyndon Johnson won while spending only 55% as much as Barry Goldwater (but Goldwater was a creepy nazi). And in 1996 Clinton spent less than Bob Dole (but only 1% less). Your vote by itself is worth nothing. Your vote and $20 is worth about 1/25 000 000th of the President's time and attention - so you are still going to be reckoning with units borrowed from physics. You get the point.

So no matter what happens in the next election I'm not getting any richer, any happier, or any closer to realizing my dream of living right beside the world's largest UFO landing pad but, and this is the thing, I really don't like Stephen Harper. I also don't like elections where I have no choice but to vote against something I dislike rather than for something I like but, landing pad.

Canadians have never managed to define what we are but we are very good at saying what we aren't. We aren't Americans. And Harper doesn't represent the Canada I believe in - I've been reading that one a lot on FB recently. What is the Canada I believe in? Apparently not Stephen Harper. I might have to vote because of how much I dislike Stephen Harper. I hate his sweaters. I hate his face. I hate his politics and his pro-business, pro-oil economic agenda. I hate how he can blow through tax money like a sailor on shore leave but still keep his reputation as a "fiscal conservative" because, well I don't know why that is. Mostly I will vote against him because he is a jerk to librarians. I've written about the current government's rules re librarians before and, seriously, fuck that shit. You pick a fight with librarians, you pick a fight with me. And yes I know, the hot woman with the glasses and the uptight demeanour who is really a total slut is a porn only fiction but still, librarians. So fuck you Harper. I will show my disrespect for you in the only way I know how - by voting for the first time in 22 years.